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Recently the husband and I had to go through what may be the strangest stage of the whole adoption process.

The medical….

When you start thinking about adoption you know somewhere along the line you will have to submit yourself for a medical evaluation. It’s a sensible ting to do as the last thing the social services want is to place a child in a new home, only for something medical to come up that could have been spotted before.

However it is still very strange. As well as the usual pee in a pot exercise and listening to your heart, there are some very odd examinations. Your tummy is poked, feet ticked, back checked for curvature, hand eye coordination check and lost of boxes to be filled in on a form.

Talking to the doctor she found the whole process rather odd. As she pointed out a majority of the more serious illness wouldn’t be detectable by a simple medical check, and even more of them would develop rather quickly. That being said, we did get a clean bill of health.

The one thing we did learn after meeting up with the rest of our prep group later the same day, was that the price for medicals can be so varied. I’m talking anything from £40 to £150!! Every one has to have the same form filled in so I don’t understand why the big difference! Apparently there used to be a standard price but now Gps can charge whatever they like! Now I’m not saying they shouldn’t charge at all, we were with the doctor for about an hour. But there shouldn’t be such a big variance in the charge.

The government are talking a lot at the moment about reforming the entire adoption process to make it more efficient but nothing has been mentioned about the cost of medical etc.

My advice, shop around and don’t be afraid to change doctors.

Oh and get a pee pot before your appointment so you can pee at home and not at the doctors surgery….